Communications sessions may require a portion of finite network resources when transmitting streams of traffic over a communications network. To support the traffic streams, traditional request-based network resource management systems may rely on receiving explicit indications regarding network resources requested for the traffic. Such systems may require that details of the requested resources be made available in advance. However, not all applications and systems support explicit resource requests.
Additionally, even for environments that do support explicit resource requests, a resource request may over or underestimate the amount of resources actually required for the traffic stream. In addition, while for some streams the required resources may be predictable and consistent through the life of the stream, the amount of resources required for other streams may vary over time. Thus, even in environments that support explicit resource requests, it may not be optimal to use the requested resource allocations to support traffic generated by a communications session.